A new anti-terror law every 7weeks

24 October 2006

Free public lecture – What Price Security?

Australia has gone from no law to too much law, says UNSW Professor George Williams, who will give a free public lecture at the University of New South Wales on Wednesday evening, 25 October, on the past five years of Australian anti-terror legislation.

His address will be based on his new book, What Price Security?, co- authored with UNSW Faculty of Law colleague Dr Andrew Lynch. Professor Williams will examine the effectiveness of Australia’s laws dealing with terrorism in the sixth and final Brain Food lecture for 2006.

“Until September 11, 2001, Australia had no national laws dealing with terrorism. In the five years since we’ve enacted 37 new laws, or a new law around every seven weeks,” Professor Williams says.

“A legal response was required to signal that as a society we reject such violence, and to ensure that our police and other agencies have the powers they need to protect the community. However, five years down the track it is time to ask how effective these laws have been and whether we have undermined some of the very freedoms that the laws are designed to protect. In fighting the ‘war on terror’ we must not become the victims of our own fears.”

George Williams is the Anthony Mason Professor and Director of the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law at the Faculty of Law.

The Brain Food lecture series is presented by the UNSW Alumni Association.

What: Professor George Williams delivers the Brain Food lecture on What Price Security?

When: 6.00pm for a 6.30pm start, Wednesday 25 October 2006.

Where: The Galleries, The John Niland Scientia Building, Kensington campus, UNSW

Contact: ph 9385 3279, alumni@unsw.edu.au or visit www.alumni.unsw.edu.au



Media contact: Alex Clark, UNSW Media unit, 9385 3263 or 0405 237 553, email alex.clark@unsw.edu.au

Date Issued: 24 October 2006